


Legion's Angel

by Riya3



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2629151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riya3/pseuds/Riya3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ymir was not a candidate for a picture-book romance, but she felt like home. Ymir/Krista</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legion's Angel

She was normal before she joined the Scouting Legion. But they have a way of taking things out of you and putting other stuff in and within months she was no longer silky-haired golden-smiled or any of that nonsense. Compared to most of the experienced soldiers she was still a goddamn angel but something told her that if she returned to that farm, tried to sit on her mother’s cotton lap, it would be unalterably different.

 

And one day after the third month when she thought she was finally invincible, the world taught her that she wasn’t.

“Prettiest girl who dared set foot in here,” one of them said. He stood near the flap of the two-person tent. “And I get to watch her sleep. I decided not to be too selfish.”

She stared out behind him into the cold evening, huddled beneath her blankets. He was short, and kind of skinny. Nothing she couldn’t take. You see, hours and hours and running and slashing until your legs almost fall off and your arms feel like jelly are enough to convince you that you can handle the world. Looking into the eyes of a titan makes you feel like no human could compare, like fear is on a one-dimensional scale directly proportional to strength.

So when the other two emerge from the damp fog behind him she was completely unprepared. She gasped and slid out to reach for her blades but they were there before her, jabbing them into the blankets until they were pinned to the tough ground.

There were three. Two new recruits like her. One upper-year who’d come at the rumors of the pretty girl with shaking hands and shaking knees. She yelled her commander’s name while they tried to pry her away from the tent but the falling night was silent in response. People were used to screams.

“Hey, we’re not going to hurt you, it’s just a thing, ok? Like, initiation. Anyone else in your spot would be pulling at our sleeves.”

“No!” She kicked at one of them but another caught her leg, and it was small enough to be circled entirely in one of his hands.

She liked being small. She told herself it was stealthy, useful, small-footed narrow-thighed and cute. But the sight of that hand with its fingers wrapped around her knee was what first told her that she was weak, and that she would always be weak. And she tried as hard as she could to repress that thought.

“Hey what’s going on?” One of the tend flaps was pushed aside and a dark face peered in. Curious eyes. And then a tall girl who had to bend almost in half to stand inside.

The three soldiers paused for just a moment and she took it as a chance to kick at their faces before they could stop her, quick and sharp and painful and it sent their hands away to nurse red bruises. And then she was slinging her bag over one shoulder and bundling up her blanket in another, everything she could carry in her small arms.

The night was cold, and the tall girl walked out slowly behind her with a confused look in her eyes, and just a little mirth.

“So you’re the Angel everyone’s talking about.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“What’s your name then?”

“Krista.”

“Stupid name. Sounds rich and pretentious.”

“I’m sorry about my stupid name.”

Krista stood in the cold, still dressed in a uniform splattered with dirt from the day’s work. She looked around at the sparse distribution of tents, and then at her own, which the three hadn’t come out of, probably from fear of being found out. Then at the tall girl with the gold eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Ymir.”

“Let me stay in your tent Ymir.” It wasn’t pleading, or begging. It was said with an earnest look and a proper stance, and maybe she should have begged and been rejected instead.

But the girl looked at her and then grinned. “Only if you sleep naked.”

“That’s not possible it’s too cold outside.”

“Idiot. It was a joke.” Ymir muttered to herself, and then turned and headed for her own tent. Somehow she didn’t mind when Krista followed her, and even tossed out the other recruit assigned to her tent without a second thought.

-x-

Ymir.

The tall Eygyptian girl with brown freckles and browner skin that glowed every time the sunlight touched it and blended so nicely into the night that sometimes, when Krista woke up, all she would see in her tent was the whites of a pair of eyes.

The ridiculously strong girl who didn’t seem to give a fuck about killing Titans or anything but fought with a startling amount of precision, like she was planning on dissecting her opponent later and didn’t care where she hit as long as her cadaver had a pretty face.

The long-fingered girl who never ran a brush through her hair but made sure to trim her nails every day.

The girl who slept next to her for three months, and disappeared at times in the night to come back hours later with heavy breathing and a flush that settled across her deep brown skin, connecting all the freckles on her face in a haze of red.

-x-

The first guy Krista looked at twice was someone named Marco, who had a smile that could hang the moon and light the sun. When Ymir caught her writing his name down on the few pages of paper she bought every month, she scowled a scowl that made her look completely feral.

“He’s really nice, I thought you liked him too. You even let him spar with you yesterday.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me.” She ran one hand through her short hair and turned away like it hurt to look. “Sure he’s nice. Really nice. You could probably run off with him to the nearest village and change your names and live like an old farm couple with twin toothy smiles until you’re old and sharing a walking stick. Just get away from me. Clueless bitch.”

Krista was more than confused, because Ymir had never spoken so many words to her at once. She was the kind of person who tended to speak with her face and her body, and not her mouth. Kind of like that kid Eren, except quieter. In fact, it took a while for the meaning of what she’d said to settle in, and Krista’s heart sunk almost to her stomach.

It wasn’t something she was used to, because her approach to life was utterly formulaic. It was like, _run away from the mess at home_ to _build a better mess somewhere else._ Like, _I can’t wait to have my blaze of glory._ Like, _to be one of those people whose silhouettes made men tremble._ Like, _to have someone care and depend on me so much they never want to leave my side. Like living out of a book._

And none of the books she’d sneaked from her mother’s shelves ever spoke of anything but the kind of glory every strong Sina woman dreamed of. Stories of handsome men on horses who’d take the limelight until you could step in and protect them in the name of love. Children who’d cling to the skirts of your rich dresses while you struggled to win at... at something.

The Scouting Legion had been her only option, so it was different, but she’d shoehorned in as many of her dreams as possible. And people like Marco were an enticing addition to the checklist.

She stepped forward. “Ymir...”

“Don’t look at me like that. Go have your fucking life.”

-x-

For days she slept in the backs of wagons during their training expeditions, comforted by the damp straw that was later used by the horses. It was strange to wake up in the middle of the night and see the vast expanse of pitch-black _nowhere_ around them, but she grew used to it, just like she’d grown used to Ymir’s eyes.

And it took months for them to be put on the same team again, for her to look across the line of soldiers and see Ymir standing tall beside that guy named Reiner. None of the anger was in her expression anymore when she looked across at Krista, but Krista still looked away quickly.

That evening, they stayed in an old fort, the first time they’d been surrounded by solid walls in almost a week. The door swung open with a creak at eleven, and she didn’t need to look up because she recognized that confidant gait.

“Hey Angel, I’m staying here tonight. Got stuck rooming with your shitty boyfriend.”

Her cheeks burned. “That was months ago, Ymir. I don’t think that way about him anymore.”

“ _I don’t think that way about him anymore_ ,” Ymir parroted, making the words sound grotesque, a talent of hers. “Pathetic. Well, your shitty boyfriend wants to sleep with _his_ shitty boyfriend and I’m having none of that, so make some space. I hope you got rid of your ridiculously loud snoring.”

Krista sat at the windowsill with her knees drawn up and refused to move. For a while she stared outside, at the darkened sky and the brief motions of the recruits standing guard outside. This village was abandoned. It had been pillaged by Titans long ago, and now it was being pillaged by twenty soldiers led by Commander Levi.

When she turned back, Ymir’s belts were scattered on the ground and her shirt was halfway up her chest. It dropped to the floor within seconds, revealing her white flexible bra and slight chest. Every time she turned, Krista could see muscles flexing across her abs, the kind of thing her own body couldn’t attain no matter how many sit-ups she did. Something held her eyes to the sight, long after Ymir had noticed and turned to face her.

“Planning on going to bed any time soon? It’s pretty warm in the nights around here. I should know, because this is where I grew up, a long time ago.”

“I’ll go to bed later.”

“Aww, are you shy? Think I’ve never seen a girl’s chest before?”

“Yours doesn’t count, you barely show though your shirt.”

“And neither do you, Angel.” Her amusement didn’t fade. “But I never mentioned my own. You know exactly what I’m saying, you were never that innocent to begin with.” She sat on the bed with crossed legs. “I joined before you, you know, and there were so many girls in uniform filled with shame. They’d run away to join the corps after their families found out, with the goal of doing what they wanted before they died. And they did a lot of what they wanted, because I don’t have any secrets to keep.”

“I don’t care.”

But Ymir was smiling, and her smile promised nothing. “Don’t you want the same?”

And the floodgates in her mind held back a singular _yes_ , the _I’m strong enough to get used to anything but yes, I missed having you near me every night._ The _I want to see how your freckles melt into your blush, again and again and again._ The _I was probably weird enough before I met you but you destroyed my ability to keep it hidden._ The _kiss me._

She wanted that. She wanted Ymir’s lean hands slipping down her stomach.

But something was different this time, because Ymir wasn’t angry anymore. She wasn’t tiptoeing anymore. She no longer send those brief glances that said _come here._

Krista shook her head, and stayed by the windowsill. “No. Not like this.”

-x-

She didn’t get much sleep for any of the days Ymir stayed in her room, while they hid out at the small fort north of Trost. She only slunk into bed long after Ymir had fallen asleep, growing emptier day by day.

It took a week for her to relent. At one in the morning, when she was wide awake and the tall girl who shared her bed was sleeping quietly. Krista slid closer, and leaned over, and kissed her.

“You’re not supposed to do that when people are sleeping, don’t you have manners?” Ymir’s voice was rough, straight out of sleep, but she woke quickly. And tossed a hand over Krista’s back, cradling their bodies together until there was no space between them.

Krista felt like crying out of anger, at herself for relenting. “I’m ok with this,” she forced out.

“You had better be clear about what exactly you’re ok with.” Ymir tilted her head back as Krista kissed down her neck. “Because it won’t be much. Why do you think I’m here? I’ve gotten over you, and now I can do this without the consequences.”

_Gotten over you._ Something inside Krista fell apart, and her lips trembled as they continued down Ymir’s neck.

-x-

Ymir’s talent came through when she was pressured, and once Levi saw her fight he started putting her on the front lines, where she could look Death in the eyes with Mikasa and Reiner. But unlike Mikasa or Reiner, she fought like a cornered wild animal, like a feral cat placed among tigers. Krista watched from the backlines, tending to the injured while listening to Connie’s complaints. Watching Ymir fight was terrifying.

But there was something exquisite about her nonetheless, in the way she took up space like it belonged to her. Sprawled arms and legs, a voice like coal inserted into the plain air, Ymir was the closest Krista had ever gotten to seeing freedom.

That night she returned with a fresh cut along her arm, the only injury on her body, done with a piece of roofing while she’d swung away from a Titan. She stayed quiet while Krista wrapped a bandage around her forearm, stopping every five minutes to feel the tense muscle underneath. And then to feel more.

Ymir’s body wasn’t smooth, and neither was her own. They explored the scars on each other’s skin, where the belts had dug into their flesh, scrapes from tumbling across roofs, cuts from their serrated blades. Ymir was tall – there was so much of her, so much that Krista felt almost inadequate in size – and so lean that the thin muscles of her arm flexed as her fingers thrust inside her. The lines of her jaw were sharp, like her hipbones and the joints of her fingers. And somehow she was stunning.

“Just push yourself up a little,” she commanded, and Krista wasted no time in scrambling up the wiry bed and letting Ymir push her legs wide apart. The first stroke of Ymir’s tongue across her clit was shiver-worthy. The second brought her to pieces.

“Look how stiff you are down here. Like some sort of goddamn flower.”

“Ymir-” was the only thing Krista could choke out. “Ymir.”

Two long fingers replaced Ymir’s tongue while she spoke. “Don’t just say my name over and over like that. It’s too personal.”

“Ymir,” she replied. “Ymir ymir ymir.”

Every time Krista came to an edge, Ymir would pause, letting her collect her scrambled mind. So she stayed there at the border of pleasure, barely keeping her eyes open. She could make out that Ymir was fingering herself, almost harshly. Krista wanted to do the same with her mouth but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t think.

-x-

The morning after, Krista woke up on her back and looked down to find Ymir’s head resting against her stomach, looking up at her profile. She had a pensive look. Once she felt the form beneath her shift a little, she reached up with one hand to run her fingers across Krista’s left breast.

“You’re not so bad,” her morning voice was rough. “I could get used to fucking you senseless.”

Krista felt a frown rise to her lips at the crassness but she stopped herself. Reminded herself that she was in their world now, their crass, rough, honest world where being fucked senseless by a enticing older girl felt like home.

“This is it,” she sighed. “I’m weird. If I weren’t in the Scouting Legion, the Sina government would question me for being an aberrant.”

Ymir pinched her stomach lightly. “But you _are_ in the Scouting Legion, and most people would stand for your right to do whatever the hell you want before you die a brutal death, just cause they pity you. We’re all messed up in some way.”

She paused, and then asked hesitantly, “do you... do you think you could undo getting over me?”

But Ymir frowned at this, and slid her legs out of bed. The terse muscles of her back shifted in the morning light, and her hair was frayed near the back of her neck. “Don’t make things so complicated.” She muttered. “Take it as it is.”

-x-

She knew she couldn’t have a picture-book romance, she knew that Ymir wouldn’t allow herself to fit into that checkbox, but she yearned for it in its most abstract form. She looked for it in Ymir’s eyes every morning, and in Ymir’s hands, and in the way she tried to stifle her moans. And finally on the battlefield, every time Ymir rushed out of formation to protect her.

Because, _I’m weak._ Because, _it’s a good thing I have her to protect me, or they’d throw me out._ Because, _the titans wouldn’t even consider my small body a midday snack but Ymir and her sinewy muscles are a feast._

It was on their way out to Utgard, camped out under the shade of trees, when they appeared. A small group of four five-meter class titans that struck while Commander Levi was asleep. They had thirty seconds while Levi swiftly laced up his harnesses, and Krista slept in the nearest tent they could reach.

This time, the name she yelled was Ymir’s.

And she was there, dressed in nothing but her uniform pants and the shirt she slept in, lunging at the single five-meter class with the two blades she’d hastily pulled out of her pack. Krista caught the look in her eyes as she struck the titan’s leg. And something inside her settled down.

The titan’s giant hand fit perfectly around Ymir’s waist.

“Ymir!”

The serrated blade fell beside her with half it’s handle sheared off, and she gripped it tightly with white knuckles. Five meters was tall. Almost four times as tall as she was. So she wasn’t sure how she was able to climb its rough skin well enough to jab the blade up into its jaw, making it completely unable to close its mouth. Ymir dangled above it, trying to pry her waist out of its fingers.

“Stab it! Stab it, Krista!” She threw her remaining blade and Krista caught it by the metal. She slid one hand into the grip at the hilt and grasped the titan’s skin with the other, stabbing wildly. Each strike brought her centimeters closer to its neck.

“Krista!” Ymir’s voice was going faint, and for the first time there was real fear in her eyes. Seconds from a titan’s mouth. “Krista, quickly!”

The other blade was still in the Titan’s jaw, but it was working its way out. Krista swung one leg over its shoulder, tearing her skirt with the pressure. Then she raised both hands and stabbed it cleanly at the back of its neck. It took a while for the flesh to fall out while it recovered, but she hacked more and more until the titan slowly lost motion, and lowered to the ground.

-x-

Commander Levi came to them, took one look at Ymir’s shirt and Krista’s bleeding hand, the evaporating titan, and spat out an update instead of expecting one from them.

“We let Reiner take most of them. He can throw them, and we went for their necks while they were down. He’s like some kind of monster with that strength, but no one is complaining.”

“Commander, we need bandages,” Ymir said quickly, trying to blot Krista’s hand with her shirt.

“There’s a pack in my tent, try not to get blood over my things.”

They stumbled over to the Commander’s tent in a haze of unspoken words. Krista sat down inside, and Ymir hovered over her, finger’s scrambling to wrap a bandage around her palm.

“It’s so small,” she kept muttered as she worked. “Your hand is so small. How do you do anything with these hands? I don’t know how I would survive with hands like yours.”

Krista remained silent. She watched the white cloth slip between her fingers. “You’re not over me yet,” she said, seeming almost pleased with herself.

“Shut up, of course I’m not. You almost died, you idiot.”

“Are you going to say I should have gone to get Commander Levi instead of risking myself?”

“Of course not, that’s stupid. You’re a strong soldier who’s perfectly capable of saving her comrades, you did the right thing. Your hand isn’t worth my life, idiot.”

And it felt like Ymir was saying, _I expect things from you._ Like, _you’re not weak._ Like, _I know you can save me just as many times as I save you._

For some reason the words were soothing. There was someone who had needed her so badly it transcended all forms of honor and politeness and boiled down to one desperate look that had yelled, ‘Krista, save me!’, and that was all she wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ...so it's been a while since I've written fanfiction. I wrote this on a whim. 
> 
> This is kind of AU, except in the same universe? I wanted to write this ship like this; the plot is interesting but sometimes it gets in the way. 
> 
> Please leave some feedback ^^!


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